In the wake of the sad news form earlier events in Manchester this week, the Fitmen managed to field a strong team despite the country being on critical alert. All had read the brief from the skipper to stay strong, vigilant and unite as one team, all except one player…. Any guesses who?????

On a glorious sunny night in Worcestershire where temperatures ran high on and off the pitch, with the Thatchers Haze, Peroni and HPA going down lovely prior to the match it was time for the toss. Skipper Habib under strong instruction from Club Captain Herr Martin had been told to choose tails and bat first, not wishing to disappoint Habib delivered on both fronts. It was then onto the ockey with the oppos skipper to decide the format for the evening, with Habib winning a one dart shoot out nearest to the bull thus choosing the standard pub cricket format as described by the oppos skipper.
So onto the batting order which was to be decided on the ockey once again, each player would throw 3 darts with the highest to lowest scoring to choose where they batted. Gavalaar came out on top with a highest score of 74, whilst Salty Sea Dog Dave Healey came last with a miserable score of just 1.
Opening was Gavalaar and Jonesy, both who started nicely with Jonesy declaring on 26 and Gavalaar bowled out on 23 after showing off by hitting the lovely new match ball for 4 which was lost in the stream.
With the new ball not performing too kindly Tuckerrrr and Howarth entered the arena, after Tucker asking for the sight-screen to be moved and an exchange of girly banter with the oppos skipper Tuckerrr was bowled after hitting the first 6 on the night for 6 off just 3 balls. On entering the pavilion Tuckerrr put an early bowling request in to Skipper Habib and declared his love for the oppos skipper by stating that he wanted to bowl against him as they had some unfinished business.
Princess Leia was as steady as ever with some delicate little shots and executed a couple of lovely boundaries. Herr Martin came out still fuming due to the earlier issues over the replacement ball and decided to take it out by hitting 25 in a no-nonsense manner from just 13 balls, which allowed Lockyerbacca the opportunity to take advantage of some very average bowling from AMS. Was this to be the end of Princess Leia? Yes Lockyerbacca ran the delightful Leia out for just 14, whilst in the pavilion Heir Martin was offering some coaching to Skipper Habib about not slating Leia for her misfortunate run out. Next it was the turn of Bice to go out to bat who smashed 27 with 5 boundaries.
At this point the BBQ was in full flight with some enormous large fat sausages and juicy ¼ pounder beef patties being cooked, accompanied by a fine range of condiments from hot chili and garlic, carolina mustard barbecue and a good old bottle of heinz ketchup sauce. Gavalaar was first in to sample the BBQ with one of each and gave the BBQ his finest cockerny blessing, temperatures started to rise in the pavilion as Chas and Dave were still to bat with only 5 overs to go with Chas getting angrier by the minute.
Suddenly from nowhere Chas & Dave broke out into song with a chorus of “Coz we ain’t gonna be made to look fools no more, you done it once too often, what you take us for? Oh skipper, there ain’t no pleasin you Skipper.
Now if you think we don’t mean what we say, and we’re only bluffin’. You got another thing comin’. We’re tellin’ you that for nothin’. Coz Skipper we’re leavin’. That’s what we’re gonna … do-oo-oo!”
With that in mind Habib decided to put the team first and was caught out after just 2 balls, giving Chas and Dave the opportunity to play to their first ever cricket stadium together. Since the 2 parted ways in 2009 after a wonderful successful partnership of over 40 years, this would be the first time that the 2 had played together after an 8 year break. Would the magic still be there I hear you ask? Surely if the likes of bands such as Fleetwood Mac, Madness, Duran Duran, Happy Mondays and Steps could reform this would be a walk in the park for Chas and Dave. I wouldn’t say it was one of their best ever live performances on stage, the boys did manage to knock up 34 runs between them with Chas on 23 and Dave on 11, which meant that Rag n Bone man Houlgate came in at 11 to hit 9 not out.
195 – 6

It was still a glorious night at the turn around and after several large sausages and some wonderful patties washed down by some fine Haze, HPA and Peroni it was the turn of the Fitmen to take the field under a very different style of leadership.
Skipper Habib had empowered all the team to take responsibility for themselves, it was no longer a dictatorship style of leadership that had been set out by others before him. This showed when Deadly Dave Healey opened the bowling with a wicket from the very first ball which was caught by Tuckerrr, to which all of the team gathered around united once again joyously in celebrating the wicket. Apart from Herr Martin who was last seen sulking on the boundary as he didn’t approve of this new freedom that the team had been given, who were evidently flourishing under the leadership of Habib. Shortly after Herr Martin missed a couple of boundary stops and also told Princess Leia to get back in her box!
With a well-placed bowling order the mighty Fitmen went on to take a total of 7 wickets with some good notable performances from Tuckeerrr 1 for 7, who managed to throw down some very random aggressive balls to the oppos skipper, Princess Leia 0 for 4 runs and not forgetting Herr Martin finishing off the opposition by frightening the heebie jeebies out of their 12 & 16-year-old batsmen with deadly pace and accuracy (2 for 4 off his 2 overs!!) to finish the game winning by 83 runs.
Other wickets were taken by Chas, Gavalaar and Bice, with some great catches by Tucker, Healey, Herr Martin and Houlgate who also had a stumping.
Old Mo 195-6. Oppo 112-7.

Confidence was high after the game with talk of another invincible season maybe on the cards, some would say it was down to the fact that Tuckeerrr hasn’t kept wicket midweek to date, some would say it was down to the new style of freedom in play that the team had been empowered with under a none dictatorship style of leadership. Maybe it’s down to some players wearing crutchless panties to play in whilst some carry shawn off sotguns in the boot of their car.
I’ll let you decide……